20,000 US visas still available for skilled workers

July 01 2009 by Mark Johnstone

Visas still available for work in US

Some three months after the H-1b skilled US visa category opened for petitions, there are still 20,000 of the 65,000 quota still available for qualified people who want to move to and work in the US.

New statistics from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reveals that 44,800 H-1B visas have been granted so far. This compares to the last few years when several times the 65,000 quota was received in petitions within a matter of days. In fact so many US visas were sent out over a short period that the US Postal Service had to make special arrangements to send out bundles of the working visas.

However, things are much slower this year as a result of the economic downturn and the new rules preventing firms who have received federal funding from hiring foreign staff.

The USCIS says that this year, the trend is back to how it was before the rush. One USCIS official said, "This is what it used to be couple of years ago, before it turned out to be a great rush in the last few years.”

The USCIS stated that is will continue to accept petitions, "USCIS will continue to accept both cap-subject petitions and advanced degree petitions until a sufficient number of H-1B petitions have been received to reach the statutory limits, taking into account the fact that some of these petitions may be denied, revoked, or withdrawn."

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